LOS ANGELES — UCLA may have a shot at stopping Stanford running back Stepfan
Taylor in the Pac-12 Conference title game Friday. But Kulabafi, that hip guy
with the dark glasses and leopard print sweater, could be a handful.

Taylor, you see, can come at you out of multiple offensive sets — and with
multiple personalities.

There is the running back with tree-trunk legs who is 36 yards from setting
Stanford’s career rushing record. He is a soft-spoken Texan (Mansfield), a
senior who is majoring in science, technology and society.

Then there’s Kulabafi, the pseudonym that allows Taylor’s wild side to roam
free in videos.

The different personalities merge to create a player and person deserving of
national recognition. UCLA can attest to that after Taylor ran for 142 yards and
two touchdowns Saturday even though he sat out the last quarter of a 35-17
Stanford victory.

A repeat performance against the Bruins in the Pac-12 title game Friday would
put the Cardinal in the Rose Bowl and push Taylor past Darrin Nelson’s
school-record 4,169 career yards rushing.

“If I get it, it will be a team stat,” Taylor says. “I have been fortunate to
be put in this situation, with a great line, a great fullback, great wide
receivers and a great quarterback. All of them doing their job makes my job
easier.”

Away from the field, Taylor dabbles in writing, producing and starring in
videos that he posts on YouTube.

He does not lack for wannabe cast members. “My teammates are all trying to
get in them,” Taylor says. “It’s fun.”

Taylor’s last video was part of Stanford football’s “How We Do It” series, 15
episodes designed to familiarize viewers with the personal stories and
experiences of the players. In it, Taylor interviews his outlandish alternative
personality, who is wearing sunglasses with “Kula” on one lens and “Bafi” on the
other — written, he intimates, in “fossilized goat cheese.”

The interview doesn’t go well.

Kulabafi starts off by deadpanning to Taylor: “Before we start, I would like
to say I saw you in the kitchen this morning eating my cereal. I would like that
to never happen again. I have my cereal. You have your cereal. That’s that.”

A tug-of-war for the top bunk in Taylor’s mind is still in progress. And the
guy in the leopard-print sweater — “made out of 100 percent grass clippings,”
Kulabafi says — is giving Taylor a run for it.

Taylor alone, without the other guy, is the type of person and athlete who
fits the university’s image: a button-down student and open field runner.

He was the career rushing leader at Mansfield with 4,792 yards. When he
qualified for Stanford and was offered a scholarship, he started researching the
university.

“Not the football team, the school,” Taylor says.

His conclusion? “I would have been crazy not to come here,” Taylor says.

As for the team’s history running the football, he says, “I didn’t know
anything about that.”

That’s probably because until recently that history started and ended with
Nelson. While there have been a number of good running backs — remember Brad
Muster? Maybe not — Stanford, with Jim Plunkett, John Elway and Andrew Luck, has
always been known as Quarterback U.

That changed some under former coach Jim Harbaugh. Toby Gerhart had
back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons and finished second in the 2009 Heisman Trophy
voting.

Taylor gobbled up every bit of information from Gerhart, who now plays for
the Minnesota Vikings.

“Coming out of high school I just thought you got the ball and ran real
fast,” Taylor says. “I had to learn to be patient, set up blocks, recognize
defenses. My first year, Toby would help me with all that. We would have these
running back tests before every game and he tutored me until it started
clicking.”

Still, Taylor hasn’t received much national recognition. He was second-team
All-Pac-12, behind senior Kenjon Barner of Oregon and Ka’Deem Carey, a sophomore
from Arizona.

“It’s a shame,” Stanford coach David Shaw says. “He’s as good as anybody in
the country.”

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